After a rocky fifth episode, Arknights shows its strengths once again in an action-packed episode that’s building to a grand finale, but where those strengths lie is a bit peculiar. It’s become apparent this late into the season that Prelude to Dawn isn’t a great action series, something that honestly should have been clear from the early episodes.
Last week, Amiya had to get Misha to safety all while trying to convince her that they weren’t trying to lie to her or betray her by putting her in police custody. Considering the fifth episode’s dip in quality and Episode 6 more or less returning to the status quo, it honestly feels like the last episode could have been written out entirely or abridged within the start of this one. All that truly impacted the story going forward was learning that Misha has Oripathy and needs medical treatment and that the masked pursuer has some connection to her. Everything else was brief introductions to characters like Exusiai and Texas, which again were brief enough that they would have fit in this episode’s beginning with some trimming of the fat.
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A Brief Farewell
The titular “farewell” of this episode is a brief one from Amiya to Misha, promising to bring her to Rhodes Island and give her treatment. It was surprising to see Ch’en so cooperative in promising to arrange a transfer to Rhodes Island, considering she’s been a secretive, somewhat aggressive figure in opposition to Amiya.
Perhaps it was just the story’s design, to set up this authoritative cop character to turn out to be kinder under the surface. Misha reveals that she’s heard of Ch’en’s good deeds in helping the orphans and infected in the slums, which is presented as a moment to see her in a different light. It’s certainly a more flattering depiction, but also where the story starts getting a bit hazy with its messages.
Arknights creates a fictitious and supernatural political story that seems to draw upon real-world influences but places its characters in a very neutral position. In that sense, it seems very centrist in its position on these topics, wanting to explore both sides. It’s an understandable approach when dealing with a cast of such marketable characters: who wants their waifu to be a bigot?
But centrism can also conflate two sides with both sides being equally valid/invalid, which in the case of oppression, can be more than a little hazy. When Amiya and her gang are cornered by yet another group of Reunion troops blocking their path in hilariously large numbers, Amiya lashes out in a way that feels dismissive of the plight of the characters.
Reunion has consistently been shown to be antagonists, with the Ursus Empire really not having a suitable character representing their will and the bigotry they have perpetuated. So the only villains thus far are the victims of bigotry who have simply become corrupted by hatred. It’s another case of “I see why you’re doing it, but I can’t support how you’re doing it.”
Rhodes Island’s solution seems to be creating an independent and supportive community dedicated to helping everyone. They collaborate with problematic governments while maintaining their independence, all in the hope of paying it forward as it were. It’s an inoffensive and valid portrayal of how to respond to a world that is hateful, but Amiya’s attitude towards Reunion seems to betray her previous temperament.
The line about Chernobog implies that this entire rant stems squarely from the Chernobog incident, but it completely dismisses the reasons that Reunion got violent in the first place. And even with the context about Chernobog, suggesting that the victims of prejudice were the first to hate just seems stupid within the larger context of the series.
Back to Formula
As mentioned previously, Arknights, despite having the look and attitude of an action series, is not a particularly great action series. It has an impeccable atmosphere and art design, and a voice cast that is extremely talented, but the story and characters are more interesting than the action that theoretically should be drawing eyes to this series.
There are moments of nice-looking choreography, but most of the magic of this show comes down to clever directing and the team working with what they have. A lot of action happens when the characters aren’t on-screen. A character gets kicked into view more often than audiences see the kick.
The opening of the show has more impressive sakuga than the entirety of the show thus far and for those who have been intrigued and have considered giving the show a watch, that might be a dealbreaker. There’s still a chance that the conclusion might pull out all the stops, but that kind of hope has been crushed by similarly promising shows in the past. We’ll just have to wait and see.
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